Keep going gray. Because, you know, I just have to not dye it. Easy. Done. Laziness will get you far.

Refine my signature style.ThredUp has helped a lot in this regard. I’m getting better at resisting things just because they’re cheap, and focusing more on fit and what I’d wear with a given item. And I definitely feel less self-conscious when I’m wearing something I’ve thought about than something that makes me feel lumpy and haphazard.

Work through the old tumblr drafts. I rescued what I wanted from the sinking ship, switched over to WordPress, and the words started spilling out.

Read more. I won’t be at book-a-week status in 2016 but I’m set to finish stronger than 2015. I know the number is arbitrary (especially because it contains behemoths like Brothers Karamazov and shrinky-dinks like My Father’s Dragon), but it’s a helpful measure of how I’m making time for myself and the old mind grapes, too.

Going meh:

Finish Middlemarch. I got further than I have in previous attempts, but then I decided not to give up on Brothers K after all, and that ended up occupying all my willpower reading for the summer.

Explore Charlottesville and Staunton thoroughly. Still haven’t been to either, much less the Everglades, which was also on my original list.

Start treating myself to fresh flowers each week. Here is where I really wish we had a Trader Joe’s, or that I was better at making it to the farmer’s market. My sister bought me a bouquet of lisianthus when she visited that lasted almost three weeks and made me happy every time I spotted them on our be-crumbed, cluttered dining room table. It’s worth doing. And I’m keeping a list of long-lived flowers to assuage my stingy spirit: carnations, daisies.

I’m trying not to be rigid about these, because (unfortunately) there’s nothing I love so much as a to do list, and the first and most important item on this list is to learn to be more gentle with myself and the people around me. I’m trying to learn not to push, trying to learn to unwind, trying to unclench my creepy claws from the dream of perfection. It’s going…well, it’s going. Let’s just hope I get many more years to work on my 30 after 30 list.